


Her Achilles' Heel

by JackTheBard



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2312111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackTheBard/pseuds/JackTheBard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heavy rain marked the funeral, and it was one that should never have happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cinder

The rain fell on Beacon in fat droplets, and for once, it was fitting.

A crowd gathered around a single coffin, black figures shifting in the muggy daylight, silent sobs wracking several of their forms. Nine of the family stood by the grave, staring at the mahogany coffin, still unable to come to terms with the fact that one of them was gone.

The three teammates stood beside them. Two women, one man, all in varying shades of darkness. The tallest of the three wore a black veil, similar to what a bride would have over her eyes as she went down the aisle, but it was only bitter now. Her love was gone.

The headmaster stepped down from the podium, nothing more needing to be said, and watched the coffin lowered into the ground. The silence was deafening, and the headmaster spoke first.

“Jaune Arc, captain of team JNPR, may you rest in peace.”

So the first rose fell, dropped from Ozpin’s fingers.

Mr. and Mrs. Arc were next, letting their red flowers and tears fall from their hands. She broke down. He remained stoic for the both of them as each of his weeping daughters bid farewell to their younger brother.

Then came Nora. Her face was stained with tears just as so many others, but she tried to keep her jaw set as she cast her rose into the grave, turning away in a way that could be misinterpreted as anger, but only so her friends wouldn’t have to see her sobbing again.

Ren knelt and let his flower drop the least distance. This was not the first friend he had to bid final farewell to, but it was certainly the one that ruined him the most.

Pyrrha was last. Raising her veil, she gazed at the wooden coffin which held the body of her best friend and her only lover, her trembling hands tightening around the stem of the rose. The thorns bit into her skin, drawing blood, and she contemplated throwing herself into the coffin with Jaune.

He wouldn’t have wanted that.

Instead, she let her bloodstained hands uncurl, the dripping rose falling into the grave, and she turned away as the members of Team RWBY placed their flowers in the grave as well. So it went.

Pyrrha still blamed herself.

**Two days ago**

“Pyrrha, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” Jaune said, his brow furrowing slightly as he checked his weapons. “It’s just a routine check of one of the warehouses. There’s been a lot of White Fang markings around here recently, and we’re just going to keep an eye on the place tonight. Ruby, Weiss, Yang, and Blake all made it out fine last night. We’ll do okay too.”

“Something’s just rubbing me the wrong way about this,” Pyrrha said, “It’s a really bad feeling.”

“You don’t trust me?” Jaune asked, stopping his weapons check before glancing up at Pyrrha, his eyes filled with worry.

“You know that’s not what I mean,” Pyrrha responded in exasperation, rolling her eyes. “It’s just a gut feeling, alright?”

“Ren and Nora are fine. We’ll be sticking in pairs tonight. You don’t need to worry, okay?” Jaune said. He had turned into a capable leader over the past year, and Pyrrha was glad to call him friend… though she would have been glad to call him something else.

“Okay… just… stick close? I couldn’t bear losing you.”

Jaune paused and stood up. “Whoa whoa whoa. Where did that come from? That’s really morbid and it’s freaking me out. Just… don’t worry? Please?”

Pyrrha rose as well, letting out a heavy sigh, “I’m sorry. Just… don’t do anything too rash tonight?”

“You know me.”

“I know.”

She wanted to hold him, then, to bring him into her arms and beg him to call off the mission, but that would be too much too soon. He knew that she liked him. But not how much. He was the only person to treat her like a human being instead of a queen on a pedestal, and she loved him for that and so much more. He was kind, he was a huge dork sometimes, and he was just… right.

Instead, she took her spear and shield, wandering into the warehouse with Jaune right behind her. So began their watch.

Ren and Nora were in close contact the entire time, relaying their status whenever they could. It was easy enough in most cases, but it was boring.

As Pyrrha and Jaune rounded a corner, they saw a flicker of movement disappearing behind one of the crates. “Nora, Ren!” Pyrrha called out, rushing forward to check the movement.

Once they got to the suspicious movement, Jaune and Pyrrha were confronted with a horrid sight.

The White Fang. About ten of them, including a woman in all black with blazing red eyes. She held two swords that seemed to gleam in the dim light, and the students knew. She was the worst of them.

Their foes charged forward, the mooks taking the lead. Jaune was barely able to get his shield at the ready to meet the first charge. Nora and Ren joined the fight a split second afterwards, her hammer slamming foes into oblivion. These ones were tough, though. For mooks, they managed to take a wallop pretty well. Jaune went toe to toe with one enemy while Pyrrha dispatched two. Ren took out his foes with his blades expertly, the char and wind of the weapons leaving his foes reeling with pain.

The Fang mobbed Jaune, Ren, and Nora, leaving only Pyrrha without a partner. The woman in black approached Pyrrha and their eyes met. Pyrrha leveled her spear at her foe and charged forward, the shield ready to strike the woman and send her reeling.

The other woman brought her blades around and hooked one behind Pyrrha’s shield, sending it wide and leaving her open. Pyrrha had to act quickly and twist to the side, letting the blade go under her arm, bringing her elbow down to trap her opponent’s wrist. The enemy was strong, but Pyrrha had the leverage, and threw her opponent through the air.

Unsurprisingly, her enemy landed on her feet, and Pyrrha used the distance to convert her spear into a rifle, firing three quick rounds at her opponent. The shots were deflected with ease, the split bullets falling to the ground as the woman in black closed the distance between them with ease. Her blades trailed flames as she engaged Pyrrha once again, crashing her weapons into Pyrrha’s shield in an attempt to make her buckle.

Rifle turned into sword and Pyrrha took advantage of the close quarters, her sword meeting her foe’s strike for strike. Jaune, Ren, and Nora still fought the mooks, the only struggle being against the numbers.

Seeing an opening at her enemy’s thigh, Pyrrha stepped in, planting her foot on her opponent’s leg and using it as a jumping point, smashing her shield across the side of the woman in black’s face, kicking her in the chest to put distance between them once again.

The woman in black reeled, stumbling and groaning in pain, her hand going to her chin and rubbing along her jawline, swearing under her breath. Pyrrha tried to charge in, but her foe launched herself back, the two swords turning into a black bow, an arrow nocked and ready to fire, orange blaze flickering at the arrow’s tip. 

“I must say, you’re much better than I thought you would be, Ms. Nikos. Quite impressive,” the woman in black said, her voice low and borderline sultry. “It’s a shame that I have to kill you here.”

Pyrrha gritted her teeth and leveled her shield and sword at her enemy, “You only have one shot. So you better make it count.”

A sly smile crept across her face, and the woman in black only said, “Then I had better put it where it will do the most damage.” Her weapon’s course changed slightly, and she let fly.

The arrow sailed through the air like a Nevermore on fire, the flames at the weapon’s tip engulfing the whole of the arrow as it flew true. It hit its target.

One body crumpled, and Pyrrha knew. She turned and saw.

“JAUNE!” she cried, practically casting her weapons aside as she ran to his body, the arrow having left matching holes in his left breast, entry and exit wounds. He was dead by the time she got there.

The White Fang disengaged, their mission seemingly accomplished, and the woman in black led them out the window, the contents of the warehouse untouched.

Nora stared in shock for a moment before embracing Ren, sobbing and burying her head in his shoulder. Ren had to look away. Pyrrha was left in tears, alone, stroking Jaune’s hair as his glassy, dead eyes stared up at her.

“Jaune, no… no… please don’t do this to me. Don’t leave me, don’t go where I can’t…” she sobbed, her tears falling on his face, “I love you…”

Words were nothing. They were air to the dead, and so fell Jaune Arc, captain of team JNPR.


	2. Ren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren secludes himself in an attempt to improve his abilities. The results are not entirely what he wanted.

Lie Ren watched his captain die, and could do nothing about it.

That was two weeks ago, and the second he dropped that single flower onto Jaune’s coffin, he swore he would never let it happen again.

That meant he had to separate himself, to alienate his being from those closest to him… even Nora.

She was scared for him. So many times she told him that he was pushing himself too far, that he was going to hurt himself, that he was going to wind up buried right alongside Jaune, but he didn’t care.

He had limits to push. He had to prove to himself and to others that he wasn’t another glass cannon. And that meant training his aura to its breaking point. His biggest problem was that manipulating that sheer amount of force was exhausting. Shields were difficult to maintain under pressure, and forcing them outwards to cause harm was even more so.

Which meant he had to train. He had to make himself stronger, to be able to fight for as long as the battle was joined, and to not give up. His aura needed work.

Ren did not doubt his combat skills without aura, that much was for certain. It was when he needed to defend himself without physical means that became a problem. As such, he went out into the forest and waited, meditated.

He summoned his aura and threw up a shield, holding it before shrinking it down, making it thicker and thicker until it was finally against his skin, an impenetrable barrier that he had to maintain, hold… hold…

The first time he tried it, he only lasted thirty seconds. At that point, he flung it out with all the force he could muster, yielding destructive results.

It started with leaving a crater around him, the diameter only six feet. That was the extent of his power…

Ren swore and tried again.

Again and again he tried, until he passed out when the explosion came, five more attempts later. He don’t know how long he was out, only that when he came to… someone was near him, sitting in the ten-foot crater of his last ditch effort.

“Ren… you’re going to hurt yourself like this.” The voice was familiar, kind, a voice that should have been filled with laughter instead of sorrow. “It’s not what he would have wanted.”

Ren sat up and stared Nora in the eye, her turquoise orbs clouded with worry. “He wouldn’t have wanted anyone to die on our watch. Including him,” he said flatly, standing and stretching, readying himself to force his aura to the surface again. It was a strain, especially since he was so distressed.

Nora took a step back as she watched Ren’s aura fluctuate, swelling then shrinking until he had a purple sheen around his body, furthering the strain that appeared on his face as it turned red with exertion. Nora watched on in shock as the aura began to crack, Ren’s voice an angry shred of a scream as the cracks rippled up and down his aura, his effort healing some of the cracks, but not quickly enough. She backed up more, not wanting to be caught in the inevitable blast until her back was against a tree twenty feet away from her friend.

With a final scream, Ren forced the aura outward, the explosion of purple energy ripping through the clearing, smacking into Nora even at that distance.

She felt her heart sink as she watched the dust clear, revealing a sweating Ren, breathing heavily in the middle of a ten foot wide crater. She tried to approach him, only to be cut off by Ren calling out, “Stay away!” as he raised his aura again.

Nora ran, knowing that there was nothing she could do for him. Tears streamed down her face as she stumbled through the woods, back towards Beacon. In the distance, she heard another thundering crash. Then another. They were only getting fainter because of how far away she was running from them, and she was afraid. She was afraid for her friend, she was afraid for herself, and she knew that this was going to change them in so many ways…

She missed Jaune.

Now she missed Ren.

Back in the clearing, Ren’s roars of agony and exertion ripped through the forest, cut off by a shockwave tearing across the earth. After five more attempts, he passed out, cursing himself for not doing better.

Over the next two weeks, it went the same way. His efforts started as meditation, but quickly turned into rage-borne cries tearing through the air as his aura was tested time and time again. He wasn’t eating. He wasn’t sleeping. He wasn’t going to class. The perfect student was flawed, now, and that was what made his teachers worry.

Professor Port was the first to take notice, the mustachioed teacher making the grave mistake of standing too close as Ren unleashed his aura. Despite his need to improve himself, he was surprised he wasn’t expelled for inadvertently cracking two of the professor’s ribs. Granted, Port laughed it off and said that he hadn’t been hit that hard in a decade, but Ren knew that there was fear in his heart from that point.

That was when Ren knew he needed control as well as force.

His regimen changed, and by the time Ozpin came by to examine the student in the woods, Ren was standing in the middle of a fifteen foot crater, manipulating his aura in a way that the professor had not seen before.

Ren made the shield, brought it close to his skin, then pushed its entirety down one of his arms and one of his legs, the entire aura condensed at the palm of his right hand and the sole of his left foot. The foot’s aura unleashed itself first, sending Ren sailing through the air towards a tree, where his palm struck the bark, practically disintegrating the wood and causing the tree to topple over. There were six other felled trees in the clearing, and many more with fractures and structural injuries to them.

Ozpin cleared his throat to gain Ren’s attention, and that made the young man pause.

“Lie Ren, this is your second warning, I am afraid. You have not turned in any of your coursework for the past two weeks, nor have you been sighted anywhere on campus. You seem to live out here, now, and I must protest,” Ozpin said, stepping closer to the student and resting a hand on his shoulder. “I know why you’re doing this.”

Ren’s eyes glanced up to lock with Ozpin’s behind the man’s round glasses. “Jaune was your leader. And I know that you have had to bury your friends in the past, but do not let this one change you. He would have wanted you to try and live without him.”

“I can’t live if I can’t defend my friends, Professor,” Ren said curtly.

“And I know that you’re trying. Just please, do not push yourself this hard. You’ll die.”

“I’m still alive right now, professor, so I’ll be fine.”

Ozpin sighed, lowering his head and murmuring under his breath, “Then I have no choice. I am going to give you one of two options. Either you reduce the time you spend training out here, if only so you can attend classes, do your homework, and inform your remaining teammates of your presence, or I will be forced to expel you from Beacon Academy.”

Ren’s eyes widened and he shook his head, “Sir, you can’t do that.”

“I’m afraid it is within my full authority and power to do so. Furthermore, you have given ample reason between your refusal to do your work and the fact that you assaulted Professor Port the other day. He’s doing fine, but the professors are scared of you, now.”

Ren bit his lip and nodded, knowing that he had no choice. “I’m afraid I will need a little bit of help getting back to Beacon, then. I’m about to fall over.”

Ozpin gave a soft smile, knowing that he had at least tempered Ren’s desire for vengeance and power. “You are a good man, Lie Ren. Jaune would be glad at the choice you have made, now.” Ozpin moved his hand to rest on Ren’s forehead, and a cloud of green surrounded the professor as his aura fluctuated.

When he took his hand away, Ren felt like he had just taken a full night’s sleep.

“Professor… how did you do that?”

“Auramancy. It’s a skill that few have, yet one that is shared by myself and Ms. Nikos. We can manipulate the auras of others around us in order to improve their skills in combat, rejuvenate them, things like that.”

“Can it heal people?” Ren asked as he and Ozpin started to walk.

“No, I’m afraid not. It can help those that are already able to heal themselves, however. Think of it as an amplifier more than a replacement,” Ozpin responded, “I have a book on the subject that you and Ms. Nikos may want to look into.”

There was a brief moment of silence before Ren finally said, “I would appreciate that. Thank you, Professor Ozpin.”


End file.
